Scan Me:

QR Code Generator and Barcode Scanner

Scan Me: QR Code Generator and Barcode Scanner

Scan Me: The Pitch

In Season 5, Episode 4 of Shark Tank, Garrett Gee approached the Sharks seeking an investment of $1,000,000 in exchange for 5% equity in Scan Me. The company is currently based in Provo, Utah.

Scan Me is an application for mobile devices which allows you to QR codes on your smartphone. The information (whether it is a URL, a piece of text, or something completely different) will then be displayed on the mobile device. This QR scanner also has a companion website which allows people to create their own QR codes for use with their business. This means that Scan Me has both consumer and B2B market applications.

One of the sticking points for the Sharks was the high valuation attached to the company. By Garrett Gee’s estimation the company is valued close to $21,000,000. Garrett attempted to justify this high asking price by stating that his application had been downloaded 25 million times. Whilst Scan Me is actually a paid application there is also a free application. It was this free application that had been downloaded so regularly and not the paid version which had a rather limited number of downloads in the grand scheme of things.

The Sharks did not believe that there was a viable business idea here. They noted that the scanning app was being downloaded by millions of users. This would have been fine for many of them to invest in during the early stages of ‘mass internet’ but now they believed solid investments online are not about the amount of eyes on the product and it was all down to the amount of money that was actually being spent and there was very little being spent through the Scan Me application. QR codes are obviously at an early stage too which most likely did not help Garrett as this application could easily have its bubble burst in the near future.

Scan Me: Result

The Sharks refused to make an offer for an equity stake in Scan Me and as a result Garrett Gee left the Shark Tank empty handed. A few weeks down the line he managed to secure $7,000,000 investment in his company from elsewhere.

Scan Me: Investors

None of the sharks felt confident that they would make back their investment should they hand Garrett Gee $1,000,000 in order to expand the reach of his qr scanner and qr code generator…as a result they did not make an offer.